Roger’s Rating : 
Should be :
Roger gave this great suspense thriller 2 stars in his review. Roger says that he understood the violence in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch because Sam was just making a point about violence in the traditional Western.
On the other hand he abhors the violence in Straw Dogs. He ends his review by saying “The most offensive thing about the movie is its hypocrisy; it is totally committed to the pornography of violence, but lays on the moral outrage with a shovel. The perfect criticism of Straw Dogs already has been made. It is The Wild Bunch.”
I’m not that sure if I get Roger’s point. He thinks the violence in the Wild Bunch is OK because it is commenting on the hypocrisy of using violence in the traditional Western but it isn’t OK in Straw Dogs because, it may be pretending to be a comment on violence, but it is really using the violence to attract an audience? I’m not so sure that the general audience watching these movies are thinking about what the director is commenting on. All I know is that I really, really like Straw Dogs. It is exciting, thrilling and well acted. There is a lot of violence but one of the points of the story was how violence begets violence.
On the other hand he abhors the violence in Straw Dogs. He ends his review by saying “The most offensive thing about the movie is its hypocrisy; it is totally committed to the pornography of violence, but lays on the moral outrage with a shovel. The perfect criticism of Straw Dogs already has been made. It is The Wild Bunch.”
I’m not that sure if I get Roger’s point. He thinks the violence in the Wild Bunch is OK because it is commenting on the hypocrisy of using violence in the traditional Western but it isn’t OK in Straw Dogs because, it may be pretending to be a comment on violence, but it is really using the violence to attract an audience? I’m not so sure that the general audience watching these movies are thinking about what the director is commenting on. All I know is that I really, really like Straw Dogs. It is exciting, thrilling and well acted. There is a lot of violence but one of the points of the story was how violence begets violence.
This excellent movie has a 7.6 rating on IMDB and a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Roger Ebert's Worst Reviews 
Beryl Gray
June 28, 2010 at 3:45 pm
That review always irked me. The point of the movie was in the tag line, “In the eyes of every coward burns a straw dog.” Violence isn’t something from outside us, it’s within every one of us, even the most timid and every man can be oushed to the point where the dog comes out.
Great site.